Last November, the Meta group announced that it was laying off 13% of its workers, which, in figures, represents some 11,000 employees. But, it is not the only one, since Google, Microsoft and Amazon have also jumped on the layoff bandwagon to balance the accounts with a reality that has nothing to do with the growth estimates that were made during the coronavirus pandemic. In the case of Meta, the problem is even greater, since its launch by the Metaverse has not yet paid off and it needs huge amounts of money to be able to carry it out.
All the services that Meta offers to users like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are completely free. In addition, it is also investing in augmented and virtual reality through Oculus, for the Metaverse, however, the sales of this type of glasses are still very far from what one would expect, since the content is currently very, very very limited. To this, we must add that advertising revenues have dropped, as has the company’s stock market valuation by almost half in just one year, which has led to a new round of layoffs that will be announced in the coming days according to say Financial Times.
Will WhatsApp be paid again?
WhatsApp hasn’t always been a free app for mobile. During its first years of operation, before being acquired by Facebook (now Meta) after paying 20,000 million dollars in 2014, WhatsApp was a payment application that cost one euro, although only for iPhone users, Android users always They have had the possibility to download the application completely free of charge.
A few weeks ago, the president of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, confirmed a rumor that the company intended to start monetize business version WhatsApp in subscription format. But what matters most to users who do not use the business version is whether there is any possibility that WhatsApp is paid for either through a one-time payment or through a subscription.
If we take into account that the WhatsApp messaging platform has more than 2,000 million users around the world (it would be more if China had not banned the application), if it becomes paid, Meta could easily and effortlessly enter several billions of dollars turning it into a payment, even if it was only one euro. Paying one euro a year, as was done years ago, to use this application would not be a problem for most users, at least initially.
You could make a lot more money if you turned it into an app that works under subscriptionHowever, this possibility is not contemplated, since users would go en masse to other platforms such as Telegram, an application that has a Premium version that offers additional improvements to those it has traditionally offered.
For now, the only thing we can do is wait to see if the changes that the Meta group is making at the personnel and organization level meet their expectations and we are the users who will not be forced to lend a hand, as long as we are willing. to pay for continuing to use this application, since it depends not only on us, but on all our friends.
